nous, thanks for that link. The article had this Venezuela has been the biggest recipient of official Chinese loans and grants in South America, accepting about $106bn between 2000 and 2023, according to AidData, a research centre at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
those dates were interesting, and I asked Gemini about the pattern of Chinese loans to Venezuela and it gave me this
According to data tracking from AidData and the Inter-American Dialogue, there was a massive pivot in Chinese credit starting around 2015–2016.
The Financial Shift (2015–2023)
If we isolate the period from 2015 to 2023, the total amount of new official Chinese loans and grants to Venezuela is approximately $15 billion to $18 billion. While that number sounds large, it represents a dramatic 85% decrease in the pace of lending compared to the previous decade. Here is the breakdown of why that number is so much lower:
The 2015 Peak: 2015 was effectively the "last hurrah" of major lending, highlighted by a $5 billion loan for the "Joint Chinese-Venezuelan Fund" and another $5 billion for oil development.
The 2016 Freeze: After 2016, Beijing largely stopped issuing new, large-scale discretionary loans. From 2017 to 2023, new lending dropped to near zero.
The "Grace Period" Era: Since 2020, the relationship has shifted from providing new cash to managing existing debt. China has primarily focused on granting repayment waivers or "grace periods" rather than sending new capital.
Why the sudden drop?
The transition between these two timeframes highlights a change in Chinese foreign policy and Venezuela’s internal stability: Interestingly, while Venezuela was the top recipient from 2000 to 2023, if you look only at the 2015–2023 window, countries like Brazil and Argentina became more active recipients of Chinese capital (particularly in infrastructure and energy) as China sought more stable investment environments.
Chavez died in 2013, so the Chinese may have seen the writing on the wall for Maduro.
The AidData site is a nice catch and has several working papers that might be of interest, The overall tenor of the papers are that China is being quite resourceful in making sure that they don't get burned.
There's some speculation there that China is not ready and willing yet to take on the US in South America, and this move by the US has shown the rest of the continent that Xi is mostly talk.
But if the US gets entangled in Venezuela, and allows itself to get drawn into something with Israel and Iran, and the US is still making noise about Greenland, that's three expensive fronts that will sap money, power, and good will pretty damn quick. Any two of those three would make pivoting to defend Taiwan a heavy lift, or a hard choice of priorities.
And Putin is bound to be watching all of this with interest as well.
The US administration is making bold moves with some powerful pieces, but they run the risk of being forked if they don't take care with their support.
I read this book about the border militias back when it first came out as part of a research project that I put on hiatus in favor of more focus on environmentalism and climate change.
I think the ICE and BP recruiting campaign under this administration is squarely aimed at bringing these border militias and the other racist/nativist paramilitary groups into the federal law enforcement community.
It also fits well with all of the recruitment that the alt-right and the white power folks and the Christian nationalist were doing with veterans and law enforcement. There's a lot of snuggling up going on.
wj: I think it’s useful to distinguish between those ICE officers who have been hired under Trump and those who were not.
nous: I’m under the impression that US Border Patrol in particular has always been a Hive of Scum and Villainy
My take is that the history of the two agencies comes into play. It's a bit convoluted, but my take is that ICE is fundamentally a post 9-11 creature, being spun off when the INS was reorganized under Homeland Security (and everyone may want to reflect on what they said about the whole idea of 'Homeland Security'. If you engaged in hippy punching when people complained about how words like this could lead to bad outcomes, you may want to rethink your prior opinions) The Border Patrol was under INS, with roots back to 1924, and was also spun off, but seems to have a longer history to fall back on.
This has me think that the Border Patrol has its prejudices baked in, but ICE is more of a res nova. CBP were (or are, hard to tell these days) limited to performing duties within 100 miles of the border and were often called on to work with the DEA for drug smuggling. I was pretty surprised when I looked at Wikipedia and read this As early as 1998, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service implemented the Border Safety Initiative in response to concerns about the number of aliens injured or killed while attempting to cross the border. It was noted that Border Patrol agents routinely supplied water, food, and medical care to aliens.[48] That same year, Border Patrol, Search, Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR), a specialized unit trained in emergency search and rescue, was established with the purpose of assisting injured or stranded aliens at remote locations.
However, the stories of the Border Patrol destroying survival caches is also well documented, which strikes me as bureaucratic behavior ('we will save them, but only on our terms!' sort of shit)
ICE was also spun off from INS, but consisted of the criminal investigators as opposed to border security and port of entry. I imagine this creates a different mindset which, added to the lack of any geographical restriction invites a grander mindset.
I think this ends up with ICE being more performative. Of course, for CBP, you have Homan and Bovino, while ICE is more often represented by Noem, so I guess 6 of 1. But reports of Stephen Millier making demands about quotas are addressed to ICE as opposed to CBP. It's probably a lot easier to bend the rules when you don't have so much to fall back on.
In regard to wj's pleas to consider the good ICE agents, I'm thinking that deTrumpification is going to demand that everyone been tossed out. For example, Ross, who is the person who has been identified as murdering Nicole Good, was originally in the CBP for 10 years before moving to ICE in 2015.
Then there's this tweet from Friday, an ICE recruitment ad featuring the turn of phrase "We will have our home again" plastered over an image of a man on horseback and a stealth bomber flying in the distance. That's a reference to the song "We'll Have Our Home Again," a white supremacist anthem favored by the Proud Boys.
The song in question having been recorded by right wing folkish Odinists - the neo-pagan equivalent of the Christian Identity lowlife that were so prevalent in the MI militia scene that gave us OK City.
As is the enthusiastic support by the party which has always justified America’s gun laws by the hypothetical need to have the means to defend oneself if a tyrannical government goes after the people.
By the way, in case this wasn't clear, I meant the GOP's "enthusiastic support" of the ICE project!
I'm under the impression that US Border Patrol in particular has always been a Hive of Scum and Villainy (thank you Obi Wan).
I know that there are humanitarian groups working along the southern border to provide water and other humanitarian aid to undeclared migrants in distress, and that BP has been known to destroy their caches when they find them (for one example).
I think ICE has been less gleefully punitive in their policy as an institution than has BP, but that may also be a product of my selection process for reading, so...
russell: In general, she says, the officers are kind to the folks they are handling. She hasn’t met that many – 10 or 12? – but that’s the pattern. So at least some of these people have retained some degree of their own humanity.
I think it's useful to distinguish between those ICE officers who have been hired under Trump and those who were not. The group who were hired under Trump are pretty uniformly scum who ought to be booted out as soon as possible. (With criminal charges where those can be sustained.)
The other group probably includes some bad apples. But the majority should be assumed to be normal people, absent evidence otherwise in specific cases.
I know it's tempting to generalize. ("All ICE agents are horrible!" "All white people are racists!" etc.) But it is not helpful if the goal is to solve a problem, or change a behavior which some of the group is engaging in.
bc: P.P.S. And I hope you wrote that with the same seriousness I did, lol.
I'm pretty sure I did. I'd be 100% sure if I knew which you'd pick if you were forced to choose between your preferred foreign policy (or tax policy, or immigration policy) and my civil rights. If you believe nobody will ever demand you make that choice at the polls, I worry you're not paying strict attention.
Let's not kid ourselves: the brutality of ICE, the invasion of
Venezuela, the threats to Greenland, and tax cuts for billionaires are
inseparable components of the Cult of He, Trump -- which proclaims opposition is treason. It's not a Chinese menu, it's a cable bundle.
Of course I know you know that my civil rights are your civil rights too, so that eases my mind a bit.
The irony of Dear Leader’s criticisms of the Iranian regime’s crackdowns on protesters is pungent.
As is the enthusiastic support by the party which has always justified America's gun laws by the hypothetical need to have the means to defend oneself if a tyrannical government goes after the people.
GtNC is scaring the crap out of me.
Sorry, wonkie - I was pretty damn scared myself when I read that. I'm just hoping Carole Cadwalladr went a bit over the top about it, but we shall see by other reactions.
"First and foremost, this is a tragic event, and I want to extend my sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of Renee Nicole Good," Kyle Milowski, a former ICE agent, told Newsweek. "It is inappropriate to judge an officer's actions during a dynamic and rapidly changing situation in hindsight through the lens of social media videos."
"Officers are trained to position themselves in front of a vehicle to create a 'contact and cover' environment, referred to as a tactical 'L-shape,' used to maintain control of a scene," he said.
The "L shape" thing caught my eye so I consulted our friend Dr. Google. It's a military ambush tactic, meant to trap an enemy in a crossfire.
ICE is using military tactics in a civilian context. That is going to continue to get people killed.
It needs to be shut down. I don't know who has the authority or the juice to make that happen, but until it does, people are going to continue to get killed.
I'll add that my niece works as a nurse in Phoenix AZ. She has contact with ICE and/or CBP officers who bring immigrants to the hospital, as well as with the folks they bring in.
In general, she says, the officers are kind to the folks they are handling. She hasn't met that many - 10 or 12? - but that's the pattern. So at least some of these people have retained some degree of their own humanity. That, perhaps, offers a path to de-escalating some of this bullshit. Things are so polarized that I don't how anyone. can make the kind of contact that would allow that to happen, but it is, perhaps, helpful to recognize that not all of these people are utter monsters.
Some no doubt are. And the prisons - the for-profit prisons - where the immigrants are being held suck.
This is the most fucked-up situation I've seen in my lifetime. Which includes some truly fucked-up times.
I don't know how we get out of it. Even if Trump keeled over dead tomorrow, the whole MAGA crazy train has been unleashed and it's not going anywhere.
Both sides? One side is working in a professional capacity with state sanction. The other side is dead.
I supposed the dead side could be said to have made a bad decision based on the erroneous assumption that the decision wasn't anything the other side would kill her over.
The professional side looks to have made a good decision (for them) that resulted in a desirable (to them) outcome.
A perfect storm of bad decisions on both sides, starting with the agents screaming at her and grabbing her door instead of de-escalating by approaching her calmly.
The more I think about Nicole Good's killing, the more it looks like a setup to me.
1 - Why do the ICE officers interact with Good at all instead of driving around her and going on their way (to round up more "illegals" - their purported purpose), which is obviously possible, both around the front and rear of her SUV?
2 - Why does Ross walk to the front of the running SUV in the first place?
3 - Why doesn't Ross get out of the way as soon as the SUV first moves (backwards, mind you - not toward him)?
4 - After failing at #2, why doesn't Ross get out of the way when Good turns her steering wheel to the right, indicating an intention to drive away?
The notion that she was trying to run him over is silly. If that were the case, why did she back up instead of going straight at him? Why did she turn her steering wheel hard to the right even though he was standing toward the left of the SUV from her perspective?
I'm not saying they necessarily were doing it with the goal of shooting her dead. Maybe they just wanted an excuse to arrest her, even though they really should be calling Minneapolis PD, since doing so isn't immigration enforcement. As it turned out, Ross found an excuse to shoot her three times at close range, killing her without anyone from ICE appearing a bit bothered by it.
Some current quotes from GOPsters:
(via maddowblog)
Republican Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, for example, appeared on NewsNation just two days after Good’s death and told viewers, “People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil. And until we do that, I guess we’re going to have it this way. And the people that are staying in their homes or doing the right thing need to be protected.”
A fellow Texan, GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt, also told Newsmax last week, “The bottom line is this: When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life.”
…and I thought the killer would be the substitution of international corporations for national governments.
And AIs will be running the corporations. :) But I think both the AI Boomers and Doomers are overestimating how much change there will be in the next few years. The Boomers are predicting some massive changes for just this year.
A million years ago when I was, oh, about twenty I can remember being very afraid of the year 2000. I thought by then 1984 would be true plus global warming. I thought that the death would come of everything I love: nature, animals, free thought...and I thought the killer would be the substitution of international corporations for national governments. Oceania, etc. with the real decisions made in board rooms.
I was also scared to death of getting old.
I comforted myself with the thought that I would die just about the time everything I care about dies. I think I am right about that, though off by about 25 years.
Well, I'm certainly starting the new year off on a happy note! Sorry about that. I guess I need to buy some hydrangeas.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “¿Qué quieres decir cuando dices China, por favor?”
nous, thanks for that link. The article had this
Venezuela has been the biggest recipient of official Chinese loans and grants in South America, accepting about $106bn between 2000 and 2023, according to AidData, a research centre at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
those dates were interesting, and I asked Gemini about the pattern of Chinese loans to Venezuela and it gave me this
According to data tracking from AidData and the Inter-American Dialogue, there was a massive pivot in Chinese credit starting around 2015–2016.
The Financial Shift (2015–2023)
If we isolate the period from 2015 to 2023, the total amount of new official Chinese loans and grants to Venezuela is approximately $15 billion to $18 billion.
While that number sounds large, it represents a dramatic 85% decrease in the pace of lending compared to the previous decade. Here is the breakdown of why that number is so much lower:
Why the sudden drop?
The transition between these two timeframes highlights a change in Chinese foreign policy and Venezuela’s internal stability:
Interestingly, while Venezuela was the top recipient from 2000 to 2023, if you look only at the 2015–2023 window, countries like Brazil and Argentina became more active recipients of Chinese capital (particularly in infrastructure and energy) as China sought more stable investment environments.
Chavez died in 2013, so the Chinese may have seen the writing on the wall for Maduro.
The AidData site is a nice catch and has several working papers that might be of interest, The overall tenor of the papers are that China is being quite resourceful in making sure that they don't get burned.
"
The Economist article:
https://www.economist.com/china/2026/01/05/americas-raid-on-venezuela-reveals-the-limits-of-chinas-reach?giftId=OTVmZjAzMmEtNzA0Zi00MzA0LTllZWYtNTQ5ODUxOGU4MWJh&utm_campaign=gifted_article
There's some speculation there that China is not ready and willing yet to take on the US in South America, and this move by the US has shown the rest of the continent that Xi is mostly talk.
But if the US gets entangled in Venezuela, and allows itself to get drawn into something with Israel and Iran, and the US is still making noise about Greenland, that's three expensive fronts that will sap money, power, and good will pretty damn quick. Any two of those three would make pivoting to defend Taiwan a heavy lift, or a hard choice of priorities.
And Putin is bound to be watching all of this with interest as well.
The US administration is making bold moves with some powerful pieces, but they run the risk of being forked if they don't take care with their support.
On “An open thread”
I read this book about the border militias back when it first came out as part of a research project that I put on hiatus in favor of more focus on environmentalism and climate change.
https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-law-into-their-own-hands
I think the ICE and BP recruiting campaign under this administration is squarely aimed at bringing these border militias and the other racist/nativist paramilitary groups into the federal law enforcement community.
It also fits well with all of the recruitment that the alt-right and the white power folks and the Christian nationalist were doing with veterans and law enforcement. There's a lot of snuggling up going on.
"
wj: I think it’s useful to distinguish between those ICE officers who have been hired under Trump and those who were not.
nous: I’m under the impression that US Border Patrol in particular has always been a Hive of Scum and Villainy
My take is that the history of the two agencies comes into play. It's a bit convoluted, but my take is that ICE is fundamentally a post 9-11 creature, being spun off when the INS was reorganized under Homeland Security (and everyone may want to reflect on what they said about the whole idea of 'Homeland Security'. If you engaged in hippy punching when people complained about how words like this could lead to bad outcomes, you may want to rethink your prior opinions) The Border Patrol was under INS, with roots back to 1924, and was also spun off, but seems to have a longer history to fall back on.
This has me think that the Border Patrol has its prejudices baked in, but ICE is more of a res nova. CBP were (or are, hard to tell these days) limited to performing duties within 100 miles of the border and were often called on to work with the DEA for drug smuggling. I was pretty surprised when I looked at Wikipedia and read this
As early as 1998, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service implemented the Border Safety Initiative in response to concerns about the number of aliens injured or killed while attempting to cross the border. It was noted that Border Patrol agents routinely supplied water, food, and medical care to aliens.[48] That same year, Border Patrol, Search, Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR), a specialized unit trained in emergency search and rescue, was established with the purpose of assisting injured or stranded aliens at remote locations.
However, the stories of the Border Patrol destroying survival caches is also well documented, which strikes me as bureaucratic behavior ('we will save them, but only on our terms!' sort of shit)
ICE was also spun off from INS, but consisted of the criminal investigators as opposed to border security and port of entry. I imagine this creates a different mindset which, added to the lack of any geographical restriction invites a grander mindset.
I think this ends up with ICE being more performative. Of course, for CBP, you have Homan and Bovino, while ICE is more often represented by Noem, so I guess 6 of 1. But reports of Stephen Millier making demands about quotas are addressed to ICE as opposed to CBP. It's probably a lot easier to bend the rules when you don't have so much to fall back on.
In regard to wj's pleas to consider the good ICE agents, I'm thinking that deTrumpification is going to demand that everyone been tossed out. For example, Ross, who is the person who has been identified as murdering Nicole Good, was originally in the CBP for 10 years before moving to ICE in 2015.
"
More fun!:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-administration-posts-echo-rhetoric-linked-to-extremist-groups
The song in question having been recorded by right wing folkish Odinists - the neo-pagan equivalent of the Christian Identity lowlife that were so prevalent in the MI militia scene that gave us OK City.
"
As is the enthusiastic support by the party which has always justified America’s gun laws by the hypothetical need to have the means to defend oneself if a tyrannical government goes after the people.
By the way, in case this wasn't clear, I meant the GOP's "enthusiastic support" of the ICE project!
"
I'm under the impression that US Border Patrol in particular has always been a Hive of Scum and Villainy (thank you Obi Wan).
I know that there are humanitarian groups working along the southern border to provide water and other humanitarian aid to undeclared migrants in distress, and that BP has been known to destroy their caches when they find them (for one example).
I think ICE has been less gleefully punitive in their policy as an institution than has BP, but that may also be a product of my selection process for reading, so...
"
I think it's useful to distinguish between those ICE officers who have been hired under Trump and those who were not. The group who were hired under Trump are pretty uniformly scum who ought to be booted out as soon as possible. (With criminal charges where those can be sustained.)
The other group probably includes some bad apples. But the majority should be assumed to be normal people, absent evidence otherwise in specific cases.
I know it's tempting to generalize. ("All ICE agents are horrible!" "All white people are racists!" etc.) But it is not helpful if the goal is to solve a problem, or change a behavior which some of the group is engaging in.
"
A couple of vignettes from MAGA land:
https://youtube.com/shorts/0mB1sPCI5rA?si=x2aFSBdH76HRJ-m-
Hard to tell whether the ICE thugs are snickering under their masks in that one. And here's what non-murderous ICE "agents" are like:
https://youtube.com/shorts/7Wrl2q_5vP4?si=IzLF_-FoK-bbQXP2
Whether He, Trump enables shitheads, or vice versa, I don't know. What's pretty certain is that shitheads and billionaires are both happy with the MAGA reich.
--TP
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
GftNC: Tony P, I love you. You do make me laugh.
(blush)
bc: P.P.S. And I hope you wrote that with the same seriousness I did, lol.
I'm pretty sure I did. I'd be 100% sure if I knew which you'd pick if you were forced to choose between your preferred foreign policy (or tax policy, or immigration policy) and my civil rights. If you believe nobody will ever demand you make that choice at the polls, I worry you're not paying strict attention.
Let's not kid ourselves: the brutality of ICE, the invasion of
Venezuela, the threats to Greenland, and tax cuts for billionaires are
inseparable components of the Cult of He, Trump -- which proclaims opposition is treason. It's not a Chinese menu, it's a cable bundle.
Of course I know you know that my civil rights are your civil rights too, so that eases my mind a bit.
--TP
On “An open thread”
The irony of Dear Leader’s criticisms of the Iranian regime’s crackdowns on protesters is pungent.
As is the enthusiastic support by the party which has always justified America's gun laws by the hypothetical need to have the means to defend oneself if a tyrannical government goes after the people.
GtNC is scaring the crap out of me.
Sorry, wonkie - I was pretty damn scared myself when I read that. I'm just hoping Carole Cadwalladr went a bit over the top about it, but we shall see by other reactions.
"
In the words of Good's widow, we have whistles but they have guns.
"
From here:
https://www.newsweek.com/former-ice-agents-break-down-jonathan-rosss-actions-11334133
The "L shape" thing caught my eye so I consulted our friend Dr. Google. It's a military ambush tactic, meant to trap an enemy in a crossfire.
ICE is using military tactics in a civilian context. That is going to continue to get people killed.
It needs to be shut down. I don't know who has the authority or the juice to make that happen, but until it does, people are going to continue to get killed.
I'll add that my niece works as a nurse in Phoenix AZ. She has contact with ICE and/or CBP officers who bring immigrants to the hospital, as well as with the folks they bring in.
In general, she says, the officers are kind to the folks they are handling. She hasn't met that many - 10 or 12? - but that's the pattern. So at least some of these people have retained some degree of their own humanity. That, perhaps, offers a path to de-escalating some of this bullshit. Things are so polarized that I don't how anyone. can make the kind of contact that would allow that to happen, but it is, perhaps, helpful to recognize that not all of these people are utter monsters.
Some no doubt are. And the prisons - the for-profit prisons - where the immigrants are being held suck.
This is the most fucked-up situation I've seen in my lifetime. Which includes some truly fucked-up times.
I don't know how we get out of it. Even if Trump keeled over dead tomorrow, the whole MAGA crazy train has been unleashed and it's not going anywhere.
"
Both sides? One side is working in a professional capacity with state sanction. The other side is dead.
I supposed the dead side could be said to have made a bad decision based on the erroneous assumption that the decision wasn't anything the other side would kill her over.
The professional side looks to have made a good decision (for them) that resulted in a desirable (to them) outcome.
Both sides...
"
A perfect storm of bad decisions on both sides, starting with the agents screaming at her and grabbing her door instead of de-escalating by approaching her calmly.
"
I'm not a mind reader, so I don't know the true answer to all of this.
That said, there is this:
https://hejon07.substack.com/p/the-man-who-learned-to-stop-worrying
"
Should be read, and not just left to an LLM to synopsize
I've read some of it.
Grok gives the series good marks with minor quibbles.
AI Critique: Hype, Limitations, Future
Grok 5 is scheduled to drop sometime this quarter. It's reported to be twice as large and 50% more capable than the current model.
"
"Summary execution is to be expected."
The more I think about Nicole Good's killing, the more it looks like a setup to me.
1 - Why do the ICE officers interact with Good at all instead of driving around her and going on their way (to round up more "illegals" - their purported purpose), which is obviously possible, both around the front and rear of her SUV?
2 - Why does Ross walk to the front of the running SUV in the first place?
3 - Why doesn't Ross get out of the way as soon as the SUV first moves (backwards, mind you - not toward him)?
4 - After failing at #2, why doesn't Ross get out of the way when Good turns her steering wheel to the right, indicating an intention to drive away?
The notion that she was trying to run him over is silly. If that were the case, why did she back up instead of going straight at him? Why did she turn her steering wheel hard to the right even though he was standing toward the left of the SUV from her perspective?
I'm not saying they necessarily were doing it with the goal of shooting her dead. Maybe they just wanted an excuse to arrest her, even though they really should be calling Minneapolis PD, since doing so isn't immigration enforcement. As it turned out, Ross found an excuse to shoot her three times at close range, killing her without anyone from ICE appearing a bit bothered by it.
"F**king b*tch!"
"
At first Fox was blaming all the disruptions on Antifa, but after this weekend the new Enemy of the People is "organized gangs of wine moms."
Everyone please update your codices accordingly. This has been your Two Minutes of Hate.
"
>The Boomers are predicting some massive changes for just this year.
of course they are. without promises of Wonders, the bubble will burst.
"
Some current quotes from GOPsters:
(via maddowblog)
Republican Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, for example, appeared on NewsNation just two days after Good’s death and told viewers, “People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil. And until we do that, I guess we’re going to have it this way. And the people that are staying in their homes or doing the right thing need to be protected.”
A fellow Texan, GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt, also told Newsmax last week, “The bottom line is this: When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life.”
"
Charles WT - have you read the BJ AI series that Carlo Graziani authored?
https://balloon-juice.com/category/science-and-technology/artificial-intelligence-carlo/
[Should be read, and not just left to an LLM to synopsize ;) ]
"
…and I thought the killer would be the substitution of international corporations for national governments.
And AIs will be running the corporations. :) But I think both the AI Boomers and Doomers are overestimating how much change there will be in the next few years. The Boomers are predicting some massive changes for just this year.
"
The irony of Dear Leader's criticisms of the Iranian regime's crackdowns on protesters is pungent.
"
GtNC is scaring the crap out of me.
A million years ago when I was, oh, about twenty I can remember being very afraid of the year 2000. I thought by then 1984 would be true plus global warming. I thought that the death would come of everything I love: nature, animals, free thought...and I thought the killer would be the substitution of international corporations for national governments. Oceania, etc. with the real decisions made in board rooms.
I was also scared to death of getting old.
I comforted myself with the thought that I would die just about the time everything I care about dies. I think I am right about that, though off by about 25 years.
Well, I'm certainly starting the new year off on a happy note! Sorry about that. I guess I need to buy some hydrangeas.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.